All the World's an Islander

Maybe we really are all Islanders. It's been fascinating to watch the page-view statistics generated by this blog over the past month, particularly as they relate to geography. I should point out from the top that I was a few days late in deploying any analytics software, so whatever data may have been generated in the first 36-48 hours after the Islanders announced the Blog Box roster are not included here. That being said, there are still some very interesting data points to note.

Of the approximately 2,000 page visits between September 22 and October 22, 91.5% have originated in the United States. Canada ranks second at 7.25%. After that, the numbers per country drop precipitously. However, aside from the U.S. and Canada, 12 other countries are represented (in order of most visits): Germany, Finland, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Thailand, Sweden, France, Netherlands, Jamaica, Croatia, India, and Hungary. We could speculate that the Blog Box has caught the attention of random Dutch, Jamaicans, and Hungarians. But I imagine that the hits coming from the less obvious places are either isolated Islanders fans abroad trying to stay in touch, or fans of particular players that are connected to the organization. Either way, I'm enjoying watching that list grow.

Drilling down a little deeper, Islanders Outsider has been visited by people in 355 cities (towns, villages, etc.). New York, no surprise, is in the lead with nearly 25% of the visits. Following New York (Manhattan) are Brooklyn and Massapequa. Then comes my favorite piece of data from this whole thing. The city with the fourth most visits to this blog over its short history is...Moncton! How great is that? We read all about how much of an impact the Islanders made on the locals during training camp and vice-versa. It's wonderful to see that some of that affinity for the team has carried over into the season. I can tell you that the hits from Moncton continue--they were not limited to camp. But look out, Moncton, because Hicksville is catching up fast!

It's funny to see seemingly random cities show up high on the list (St. Louis, Delray Beach), and then realize it's because other bloggers live there and are generating all of the traffic themselves. It's particularly gratifying to see place names like Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Kelowna, and Mississauga checking in. It makes me feel like we're reaching the heart of the hockey community. And for every Farmingdale and Edmonton, there's a Zagreb and a Dresden to show that we're reaching the arms and fingers too.

The point of all this is that the Internet is doing exactly what it should be doing here: enabling those who are in close proximity to more readily share a common interest; and enabling those who are far away to participate in sharing that common interest at all.